...And Yet, Still Better than Battleship

Rating: 3/10 (19 October 2013)

Godzilla (1954,) King Kong vs, Godzilla (1962,) Godzilla vs, Mechagodzilla (1974,) Aliens (1986,) Robocop (1987,) Robo(t )jox (1989,) Deepstar Six (1989,) Tremors (1990,) Independence Day (1996,) Starship Troopers (1997,) Godzilla (1998,) Reign of Fire (2002,) The Matrix Revolutions (2003,) Transformers (2007,) The Mist (2007,) Cloverfield (2008,) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009,) Monsters vs, Aliens (2009,) Avatar (2009,) Monsters (2010,) Real Steel (2011,) Super 8 (2011,) Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011,) TV's Falling Skies (2011+) and Battleship (2012.)
Did I miss any? I mean, I was previously informed Pacific Rim was original, and I was like: whaaat?
Granted I don't believe this movie was made to be original. It was simply, and boy was it simple, made to dazzle with great visuals and giant robots vs. giant aliens. Literally, there is nothing else of substance to this movie. The acting was subpar, the dialogue atrocious and the comedic touches werewell, never funny. Hell, I even love Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but he was so hard to watch here.
Don't get me wrong, there were a few clever ideas here and the visuals and special effects were literally, huh, out of this world, but I don't see or appreciate movies that are based on one single attribute. And with such lush FX and CGI – which I normally don't like, but here was great thanks to one of the best and creative directors, Guillermo del Toro, the movie did carry me and was incredibly better than some of the movies it stole from, such as Battleship or any of the Transformers disasters.
Here's where I usually give the synopsis, and believe me, I'll be as brief as they were, despite the over two hour runtime: Since aliens coming from outer space is sooo passé, these aliens decided to come up from the ocean and they're huge. Seeing that they're virtually indestructible with our current weapons, Earthlings decide to build Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots of equal size. While forced, emotionless drama and little to mostly meaningless background takes some of the screen time, the bulk of the film is fights between the good guy/bad guy giants.
If I were a kid, damn I probably would've loved this; I craved Godzilla, and the like, big monster movies. Back then, I didn't care so much about drama, originality or depth, but as I got older and have seen thousands of different movies than I had as a child (see above for an incredibly short, albeit relevant taste,) I grew tired of the same ole stuff. It's not like I lost in touch with my younger self, but children need a lot less to impress them than educated adults.
And after this, plus the major disappointments with Battleship, Avatar and even 1998's Godzilla, I still have faith 2014's Godzilla won't let me down. I believe it will fulfill my childhood desires, but also have some depth, real characters and more than a hint of a story. Is that too much to ask when a director is given nearly $200 million dollars that he spends more than $200 dollars on the script?
* * * Final thoughts: In my first paragraph, I picked some of the most relevant movies that I've seen that I believe this mimicked or flat-out stole from. For even more big monster movies I might have missed, check out the Wikipedia page for Movie Monsters.